


To Smelt Silver

by pillahs



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, No one is surprised, Thorin lives because i accept no other scenario, Unrequited Lust, liberal use of metaphor to imply a visceral need to bone, post-BotFA, they're both drama queens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2118315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillahs/pseuds/pillahs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Those lashes were long and black as soot, and Thorin had spent enough of his time in the forges to recognize that the hottest flames are always immeasurably blue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Smelt Silver

It perplexed him, how Thranduil could have known. A curse is a curse, certainly; his echoing bellow in the Elvenking’s bastion of false life and merciless light left little doubt of his fury and his scorn. 

But how had he _known_?

_' Do not speak to me of dragon fire. '_

The words rattled at the base of his skull, carved a myriad of questions along the length of his spine, curved along the barrel of his ribs and cracked his breast until the smoke curled up from within. Elves do not understand Khuzdûl. They do not grasp the symmetry; their tongues are unsuited for it. How had he known?

Naturally, it is much too late when Thorin finally realizes what Thranduil’s cue had been. For every waking moment of his life, he had thought elves to be rather cold— surely the years must leave them with chilled skin, frigid breath; perhaps there was frost hidden in their hair. Quite simply, he was content to think it so. But that was before Thranduil had gotten close. 

That was before the smooth twitch of a hip and subsequent curve of regal spine as he passed him by afforded Thorin a glimpse of ash. Those lashes were long and black as soot, and Thorin had spent enough of his time in the forges to recognize that the hottest flames are always immeasurably blue. 

Had he reached out, had he _dared_ , tangling his fingers in dripping, molten silver, he knew now he would have burned from it, no matter how impervious to heat the dwarrow-folk were known to be. And he burns still. He burns regardless, in hatred and in obsession, and the thoughts will not leave him. Much too late, for Thranduil burned as fiercely as he. 

The Elvenking knew an inferno when he saw one. 

It is a shock to him (though it should not be) when he finds his footprints make a scorched track of his path for weeks afterward. It is a shock when he stops imagining white flesh charred black. It is a shock when he paints it flushed crimson from within, a new fire to temper the old— and the contrast leaves him tense, as expectant as the hammer and anvil. 

Soon, the fixation settled only upon that final spoken word. Fire. It had left Thranduil’s lips in a breath; a harsh sigh, a great pressure released in a drawn, excruciating _hiss_ when a groan simply had not been enough— but no matter, Thorin has twisted that marble figure to his knees in perfected memory more times than he can count. In the furnace of his mind, splayed, long-fingered hands are but bellows, and the perspiration that gathers at the hollow of Thranduil’s throat shines as silver as his hair in torchlight that casts shadows as dark as stale coal. 

They meet again. When Thorin sits upon Erebor’s throne, it is _he_ who looks down upon blue flame, and after months of a maddening solitary blaze and the insistent tug of awareness for a mystery solved, Thorin finds he can see traces of the same in the tilt of Thranduil’s head. He can see his own desire in the rise and fall of the elf’s breast, in the lift of his chin and the split bow of his lips. 

It should _repulse_ him. 

He should be ashamed that his habit has not left him— that every word that Thranduil speaks only brings to mind that greedy burst of breath. Fire. _Fire_. But he is not. And he is so consumed by it that he does not recognize the Sindarin, when it comes. Thranduil repeats it. He repeats it twice, but he needn’t have bothered; Thorin understands as easily as the fall of the hammer to steel glowing red. 

_' I am aflame. '_

”I know you are,” he answers, the curve of his lips unhindered, “I know it _well_.” And it is not a curse now, he thinks, as Thranduil’s gaze lingers bright and unwavering upon him. Now it is an oath, sparked upon his own reflection in the Elvenking’s bearing. 

And Thorin II Oakenshield of Durin’s line takes pride at last that his victory will have a name, and a fire to match.


End file.
